Pacifier

🌿Isabelle🌼

The nights were closing in on us, November had dissolved into December with rain and then hail and then black ice on the roads and as I watched Van leave through my bedroom thst afternoon, he looked as cold as the frost on the sill outside. As cold as the bird who had stopped to shelter from the chill.

But you couldn't shelter from a northern winter and the chill would reach the little robin redbreast just as it had reached Van, just as it had reached me.

I hugged my knees to my chest and watching him go, his walk purposeful, his coat collar up against the breeze.

I could guess at where he was going but I didn't want to, because I knew there was nowhere he could go to find redemption and nowhere he could go to fix the foundations of our life which were falling apart.

On the street below I could see Dylan smoking, standing beside Bob who was watching the street from behind his glasses, pensive expression on his face as he watched people come and go. Probably only trying to work out how busy it was getting at the bar, still I could sense the mounting tention in all the lads. In the girls too.

Wheels had started to turn in my little world and I didn't know why and i didnt know when but I knew things were going to change. I had a feeling as though it were the eve of war. There was a quiet hum building, men came and went from the balcony and Benji oversaw them all.

I wasn't sure they knew that I was paying attention but I was and I saw it all. Always watching, hiding out in store cupboards, pretending to have my earphones in when I was sitting at the bar with my head down, listening to them instead of concentrating on my homework.

And the things they spoke of grew darker by the hour.

Only that morning had i heard Van and my brother. Their voices hard to hear with my earphones in. They'd been talking about the Reids. About moving when the time was right so as to ensure minimal bloodshed on our side.

I didn't like the sound of that. Their apathy, their acceptance. That men on our side might die.

I knew it was childish to look at war that way, but i couldnt help it.

To accept that men on our side might die was to accept that Johnny might die. That Van might die.

Perhaps that was why as I watched his shadow disappear down the road I felt my lungs flooded with dread. Struggling for a moment to breath.

I didnt know what to fear. His not coming back or his returning with more bad news.

His not coming back or someone else returning in his place.

"What you looking at kitty kat?" asked Meghan, her voice making me jump, her presence behind me seeming to have slipped from nowhere at all.

"Nothin," i lied as her fingers curved around my shoulders and she curved too, feline in the way she moved, from behind me, to sitting opposite me in the window. Her knees hugged to her chest, her toes touching mine.

We sat parallel but we were not parallels.

"Get a good view up here," she said following my gaze down to where Dyl and Bob were still leaning against the fence which cut around the green.

"You can see everyone come and go," i said, "know when Johnnys coming back,"

"And Van.." she said, her voice suddenly knowing, suggestive in a way that left me shifting, feeling as though there were things she could tell about me that I hadn't found out for myself.

"I spose," i said, sullen, "like it better when hes out to be honest," i said, a sneaky little smile twitching my lips, hoping to impress her with how quickly I had given him up. But of course I hadn't really and she could tell. So she just grinned alone, showing me with her smile that she knew. I was lying to her but she was going to be kind. She was going to let me get away with it.